Of Past Regrets and Future Fears
by In A Tizzy
Summary: Sequel to Life's Connections. Nineteen years ago, she gave her son up for adoption. Now a college student in Chicago, he lands in the ER and runs into Jing Mei. He's angry and he wants to know why she didn't want to be his mother.
1. The Patient in Curtain 3

**Of Past Regrets and Future Fears**

The past 10 years of her life had rolled along fairly uneventfully. Sure there were bumps in the road, an occasional detour or two, but for the most part, life went along smoothly. She loved her husband of 10 years as much as ever. She was thankful for his continued good health, occasionally feeling the need to remind him that if he goes, he'll have to take her with him.

Her daughters had blossomed into beautiful young women. She and John believed very strongly that the girls be allowed and encouraged to find and go after their own dreams. The girls thrived with the positive support, finding their individual paths and pursued them with great spirit.

Mei Li was 15 and learning to drive. She grew up fluent in not only Chinese and English, but Sign Language as well. During school breaks, she volunteered at the Audiology Center, signing books for deaf children.

Gracie was now officially a teen. She often got teased by her peers as the ultimate geek. Generally strong in all her academics, she has a special giftedness in math. At 13 she's also quite an accomplished pianist and cellist and has a natural knack for picking up other instruments as well.

Today started out like any other typical day you care to pick. Everyone got up, had breakfast. Since John had the day off, he had the dubious pleasure of observing Mei Li's skill behind the wheel as she drove to school. Jing Mei went to work, held office hours for students and residents with questions and then it was time for rounds. Her life had become that routine. She knew, sooner or later, something was going to happen that would stand her world on its end. She just prayed that something would not be her husband's health.

Now on rounds, she and her students walked up to curtain 3. Jing Mei asked "okay, what do we know here?"

"University student, fell from second floor window during hazing incident. Suffered shattered right tibia, compound on the left, dislocated right shoulder, numerous lacs to head, hands and legs. No LOC. BP 160 over 110, no known drug allergies, A pos. Awaiting ortho surgery."

She acknowledged the med student's concise bullet and stepped closer to the bed, staring into the face of the patient. Something about him seemed so familiar, yet she couldn't quite identify what. Focus, she told herself and snapped back into quizzing the interns on his course of treatment before moving on to the next patient.

After rounds, she assigned each med student a number of patients giving each some things to consider in their course of treatment. Haleh came up to her. "Dr. Chen, the patient in curtain 3 is asking for you."

"I assigned that one to Meadows."

"He asked for Dr. Jing Mei Chen" Haleh said with an insinuating tone.

She supposed the patient read her name. After all, it was embroidered on her coat. Her first name though, was denoted with an initial only. How the hell did he know what her first name was? It isn't like every Asian woman you see is named Jing Mei. Warily, she told Haleh, "I'll be right there."

She took a deep breath and walked over to curtain 3. She was about to find out why this patient was so unsettling. Stepping up beside the bed, she looked the patient in the eye and said "Hello, I'm Dr. Chen, you have a concern about your treatment?"

"Not really" the patient replied.

"Then, what can I do for you today?"

"How long have you worked here Dr. Chen" the patient asked.

Well now that was sort of a tricky question to answer. She decided on vague. "I've been here quite a while now."

"Were you here 20 years ago?" he asked rather curtly.

She nodded, nose scrunched and biting her lip. This kid looked about 20.

"I was born in this hospital, to an unwed mother 19 years ago".

Lots of kids were born in this hospital to unwed mothers every year. She let him continue.

"My mother was…Asian."

She felt her heart drop in her chest. He's the right age to be the baby I gave up, she thought. "What's your name?" she asked timidly.

"My name's Michael. I was adopted by James and Linda King. I grew up in Portland."

She let out a brief pop of air. "Michael?" She raised her hand to her mouth as her jaw dropped. She tried to speak, but thoughts were not coming at a rate she could process them through. What came out, were more or less some disconnected breathy grunts.

Before she could get a coherent thought together, the orderly came. "Alright Mr. King, we're taking you up to surgery now." They wheeled him away. Jing Mei stood motionless watching him disappear down the hall.

Dazed, she made her way to the admit desk. "Jerry, they just took Michael King up to surgery. Let me know when he's out?"

Something in the tone of Jing Mei's voice said this was a patient she was very concerned about and it was important enough that he should comply with her request. "Sure".

"Thanks" Jing Mei said, obviously deep in thought.

Several hours later, Jing Mei was at the board with her students. They were running through their updates. Jerry waited patiently for them to finish. "Dr. Chen, Michael King's out of surgery. They're taking him to recovery now."

She quietly thanked Jerry and headed up to surgical recovery.

Still sedated, she sat at his bedside, trying to figure out what to say.

He awoke, obviously in pain. "Sh sh sh, it's going to be sore. You've got a rod and several pins in your leg. I'm calling the nurse. We'll get you some pain meds." She pushed the nurse call button. "We need some Vicodin in here."

"So, you're my birth mother?" Michael asked weakly, but with a hint of anger.

Biting her lip and looking in a generally downward direction, she nodded.

"You don't have any right to be here" Michael was definitely annoyed.

"Except that I'm a doctor involved in your care" she replied.

"I don't want you here. Go away." He was so emphatic, she thought it wise not to agitate him.

"Okay. I'm going. Can I call your parents for you?" She truly wanted to be helpful.

"There already on their way" was the curt retort before turning his face in the opposite direction. He was obviously done talking.

Unwelcome, she left.


	2. Heart to Heart with Hubby

Jing Mei walked in the back door just off the kitchen. The smell that met her nose was most delightful. John had prepared a wonderful meal. The main course was in the warming drawer just waiting for her to come home.

"mmm that smells so good." Her voice, rather wispy, her tone, rather resigned.

"Rough day?" John asked.

Rough wasn't the word, she thought. Gut wrenching, that might cover it. She bit her lip.

"That bad, huh?" He kissed her and stroked her back. "I've got dinner ready. Hungry?"

"Where are the girls?"

"Mei Li is next door babysitting and Gracie went over to Julie's to study. They've both eaten."

"So it's just you and me?" she asked weakly.

"Deb, what happened?"

"Michael."

"Michael" Carter slowed the pronunciation as pumped his hands in a circular motion prompting her for more detail.

Taking a shaky breath, she stared at him.

It took Carter a minute, but he did realize she was referring to the baby she'd given up for adoption many years ago.

"So how did it go?" Carter asked with understanding and concern.

"Not well. He told me to go away."

"What?" Carter was confused.

"He's in college now. Some fraternity thing. He fell out of a window. Crushed his tibia, compound fracture, dislocated shoulder…I went up to see him after he came out of surgery. Big mistake."

Carter pulled her a little closer. "Well, he just got out of surgery Deb. Probably in a lot of pain. Embarrased by the stupidity of what got him there. You know, tomorrow things could be a lot different. Why don't you go see him tomorrow?"

"I don't know what I'm more afraid of, him not wanting to talk to me, or wanting to talk, asking me why I gave him up."

Carter put his hand on hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Just be honest Deb. Tell him the truth."

He was right and she knew it. Somehow, talking it over with him, it didn't seem as much of mountain as she made it out to be in her mind. She gave him a small smile. "That pot roast smells really good".

"Hungry?" he asked enticingly.

Yeah she was hungry; just a bit.


	3. An Angry Young Man

Michael was now in the orthopedic unit. Both legs casted and nursing a freshly restored shoulder socket, he was looking at a lot of physical therapy in his future. Fraternity life? Forget it. Graduating at 22? Damn that's going to be hard. His adoptive parents? Furious. It was stupid. It was careless. It was a huge waste of good money. Tuition at this point, couldn't be refunded and the medical bills weren't going to pay themselves either. Yeah, he was an angry young man. Where the hell was that surgeon and why the hell was he taking so long with his parents?

The surgeon and his parents James and Linda came into his room. There was also another doctor with them who needed know how to mind his own damn business.

Have you been having any persistent fever? You're the doc, you tell me!

Do you tire easily or excessively? Hello, I'm in college.

Any frequent infections? None of your damn business.

Are you swollen or tender anywhere? Only around my girlfriend, man.

Do you have any tiny red spots under your skin? Try seeing any kind of spot under this skin!

Do you have bone or joint pain? I'm not even believing you're asking me that!

He looked at his mother. She looked ready to cry. Dad didn't seem to be doing any better. Okay. Hold it. Something totally not cool is going on here. "Okay doc, I know I gave you permission to talk to my parents about my care, but that don't mean you exclude me." He was very stern on this point.

The surgeon spoke first "we fixed your leg by putting in a rod and holding it in place with pins and we're going to work on getting all your bones and joints well. However, you're recovery is complicated by your other health issue.

The next doctor spoke. "Hello Mr. King. I'm Dr. Warkachevski. I'm an oncologist. Your blood work showed suspicious abnormalities. We need to run some more tests."

"What kind of tests, what's wrong with me?" Michael asked, still sporting the attitude.

"Let's just run the tests first so we talk about what is versus what might be. Here's what's going to happen…" He kept talking, but Michael wasn't really listening. In his mind, he was running through possible scenarios.

When Dr. Warkachevski finished flapping his gums, Michael maintained his sarcastic demeanor as he quipped "Yeah, whatever you say doc."

Trying to control her tears, Linda admonished her son "Must you have that attitude? These people are trying to help you!"

"Look at me MOM! I'm a freak show! My semester is ruined! My timetable is blown to hell!"

Unable to keep her emotions in check, Linda left the room. James gave his son a compassionate look and then exited the room to catch up with his wife. In the hall, a few steps down from their son's room, Linda wept in her husband's arms.


	4. Three Really Scary Words

"Shift over" Jing Mei told herself aloud. "Head upstairs, talk to Michael. Today is a new day. He's had time to adjust. Today he'll be more up to talking".

On her way up, she saw Michael's parents in the hall outside his room. It'd been a lot of years, but she could never shake the image of Linda singing "Baby Mine" to the son she had just handed them. The son she gave birth to hours earlier. The son she desperately wanted to keep, but didn't have the support she needed to do that. They looked terribly upset, visibly shaken. A feeling of dread came over her. She should have told her student to do a full blood work up on him. His presentation didn't warrant it, but the looks on their faces told her there were more than broken bones to worry about.

"Hello" she said in a quiet, compassionate voice as she walked up to the couple.

"Doctor" James said.

"You don't remember me do you" Jing Mei asked.

James and Linda looked at each searching for a name.

"I'm Jing Mei Chen."

Now recognizing her and noting the long white coat, Linda asked "You work here?"

Jing Mei nodded.

"Are you involved in his care?" James asked with a reserve of concern.

"I manage the doctors who treated him in the ER, so I can answer questions about the care he received under our service, but once he went up to surgery…"

Linda struggled with whether or not she should share Michael's diagnosis, finally deciding it was only right. She was his birth mother, and she had trusted them with his care. A move she knew wasn't easy for her. "Michael's been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. I don't even know what that means, just that it's three really scary words."

Jing Mei knew at that point, the attitude Michael was expressing probably had nothing to do with any resentment he harbored toward her. In all likelihood, he'd been experiencing a great deal of pain and discomfort even before the fall. That in itself can shift anyone's mood to the unpleasant side.

She put her hand on Linda's arm. "If there's anything I can do, please let me know. You can call me here anytime."

They both appreciated the offer and thanked her.

"Um, I spoke with Michael after his surgery. It was very brief. He was agitated and I didn't want to upset him any further. Tell him when he's ready, I'd like to talk with him again?"

Linda nodded. "Jing Mei, did you ever have more children?"

"Yes, my husband and I have two beautiful girls; one's 15, the other's 13."

"Thanks" Linda said in a low whisper of relief. Jing Mei having children of her own, gave her a measure of comfort about her own son.

Linda and James turned toward their son's room. Jing Mei turned in the opposite direction to head back downstairs.

The elevator doors opened and she was back in the whirlwind of medical activity commonly referred to as the ER. She sought out her husband, finding him near Exam 2 conferring with a couple of residents.

"Did you go see Michael?" Carter asked.

"Tried, but no" her voice was sad and thin.

He gave her that concerned look that always read to her as "I'm here and I'm listening", but she really didn't want to bring this all up in the middle of the ER. She loosely grabbed a couple of his fingers and mindlessly waved them about. "Talk about it on the way home?"

"I'll be ready to leave in a few minutes" his tone commensurate with her mood.


	5. Why Did You Do It?

As the weeks passed, Linda would call Jing Mei to update her on Michael, but insist she not see him. With each passing week, she feared they would take him back to Portland before she had the chance to see his face and speak with him again.

But that ended today. Today Linda called to say he finished his round of chemo and was cleared to travel back to Portland to complete his treatment. Michael wanted to meet with her before they went back. Their last follow-up with the Dr. Warkachevski was that afternoon. Could they meet here at the hospital afterward?

She had a difficult time staying focused on her med students and the care they were providing to their patients, but was glad they were inquisitive and eager to learn. It helped the morning pass quickly.

Late in the afternoon, she was treating a patient in Curtain 5. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of him with his parents in the hall way. Noting he was not wearing a face mask, she finished with her patient as expediently as possible without compromising her care. She rushed out into the hallway to catch up with them. They had made it all the way to the admit desk, a flurry of rushing doctors and nurses, gurneys and assorted patients surrounding them.

"Jerry what's open?" she asked with a sense of urgency.

"Exam 4" he replied.

"Thanks, put a DND on it for me?"

"DND" Michael asked.

She took hold of his wheelchair and turned toward Exam 4. Leaning down, she whispered in his ear "Do Not Disturb; you're not wearing a facemask."

"What, this thing?" He held up his facemask so she could see.

Arriving in Exam 4, she shut the door behind them. "This is a busy ER. You're okay in here, but out there; germ fest. Wear your mask!" She put special emphasis on those last three words.

"Mother's warning?" Michael asked.

"Doctor's orders" she replied sternly.

"You don't want to be my mother. You never did." Michael stated as fact.

But nothing could be further from the truth. "You have a mother and she loves you very much".

"Something you never did" Michael said flatly.

Okay, something could be further from the truth. "I can understand how you would feel that way."

"But that's not the way it is?" he questioned with a bit of sarcasm.

Jing Mei shook her head and took a deep breath. She spoke slowly, carefully, compassionately. "I was in the middle of my residency when I found out I was pregnant. When you're a resident, life can be really rough; a lot. You work 12 hour shifts, at times, back to back and you're literally on for 24 hours. Even when you don't have back to back shifts, you're almost never out of here in 12 hours. There are charts you're responsible for, research that you have to do to make sure that you're giving your patients the best possible care and not killing them, papers and studies you need to get published in order to be a viable candidate for an attending position when you're done with your residency. I knew that I would need help taking care of a baby while in my residency. I knew that help needed to be someone that loves you and cares about you. But I didn't have that."

"What about my biological father, why didn't he help you?"

"He was not someone I had a relationship with, I didn't want one with him. He was a patient I treated here at work and when he was released, we went out - once. That was the whole extent of it."

"So why'd you sleep with him?"

"Hormones?"

Michael let out a small laugh. "So I get it honestly, huh?"

Jing Mei breathed a short pop of air through her nose, slightly amused by the comment.

"What about your parents, why couldn't they help?"

"Michael do you know your maternal grandparents?"

"My mom's parents? Yeah, they're great."

"How do they feel about your father, you?"

"Huh? What do you mean" confusion registered on his face.

"Do they accept you and your father, treat you like family?" Jing Mei asked.

"Why wouldn't they?" he asked. Jing Mei took heart that he didn't understand where she was going. "Oh, you mean because we're black?"

Jing Mei nodded.

"No they're cool."

"You've grown up in an awesome family Michael. My parents were very traditional; very Chinese. They did not have a cool attitude about blacks. They wouldn't have given you the love and care you deserve, they wouldn't have accepted you the way your grandparents do."

She reached over and put her hand on his knee. "I'm sure that if I had kept you, my parents would have provided the money to see that you were taken care of, I would have been able to hire a nanny to take care of you while I worked. But I wanted more than that for you. I wanted you to know that you were loved, you were accepted for who you are. I couldn't give you that, but your parents, they did."

"My mom says you're married, have a couple of girls."

"Mmmhf" Jing Mei confirmed.

"Your husband Chinese too?"

"No, he's white."

"So, what do your not cool parents think about that?"

"They died before my husband and I got married, had kids".

"If they were alive, how do you think they would feel about your white husband and your half white girls?"

"I've thought about that a lot over the years. I've done my best to give my daughters Chinese values and an appreciation for their Chinese heritage which I think would have pleased my parents, but I've also let them embrace their white heritage, and I really don't think that would have gone over very well."

"So I've got two sisters."

Jing Mei nodded. "Mei Li is 15 and Gracie is 13".

"I'd like to meet them someday."

"I'd like to make that happen." Jing Mei offered.

"I'm tired" Michael stated.

"Get some rest before your flight."

"Doctor's orders?"

"Doctor's orders. And put on your mask! I'll take you out to your parents."

Michael obediently did as instructed.


	6. Chopin, Nocturne in E Minor

Several months passed, life had pretty much went on as normal in the Carter-Chen family, when the phone rang. "Deb, it's for you" Carter called out to his wife in the other room. As Jing Mei came to the phone, he let her know it was Linda. Handing her the phone, he watched her with great concern.

"He did?...When?...What happened?...Why?...How, did…When?" Quietly and slowly she hung up the phone.

"Deb?"

"Michael passed away…he was almost done with his second round, he was doing well. They were looking forward to him being released next week…then he got pneumonia…his immune system was too compromised."Tears falling freely down her face, Carter wrapped her in his arms, stroked her hair, let her bury her face in his chest and just cry.

Composing herself, she told her husband "I'd like to go to his funeral, the girls too, all of us."

"You ready to tell them?" Carter asked tenderly.

She squeezed his hand as she turned to living room. Gracie was there playing a concerto on the piano.

When she sat down on the bench next to her daughter, Gracie stopped playing mid piece. She sensed her mother was very upset. "Mā ma what's wrong?" she asked. Jing Mei ran her fingers thru Gracie's long dark hair. "I need to tell you about someone" she began. With honesty and love, she told her about the brother she would never know in this life, about his birth, his adoption, his bout with cancer and his death.

As her mother rose from the piano bench, Gracie did as well. She lifted the lid and rifled thru her sheet music. She took out Chopin, Nocturne in E minor, closed the lid, sat back down and began to play. Jing Mei stood behind her daughter with her hands on her shoulders. She stood this way for a few moments, taking in the haunting melody that seemed to aptly sum up her emotional state.

Mei Li walked in the front door and exclaimed "God Gracie, that's depressing music!" Jing Mei walked over to her older daughter, took her by the hands and led her across the entry way to the stairs, sitting her down on the third step as Gracie played on. Now it was her turn to learn about Michael.

"Mā ma, you think Lǎo Ye and Lǎo Lao don't love us, accept us or Bà ba?" Mei Li asked.

Jing Mei leaned her head against her daughter's. "You know what the wonderful thing about heaven is?"

"That Jesus is there?" Mei Li replied.

"And all skin is the same color." She kissed her daughter on the forehead and together they sat as Gracie played on.

Listening to his wife explain the situation to their daughters, Carter couldn't help but love her even more. He loved that never in her life, was she too proud or too afraid to ask for the help she needed. He loved that she took her weakest moments and made them her greatest strengths. He loved that out of her adversity, she found the courage to make the world a better place.


End file.
